What's in a Name ?

"You ought to have some papers to show who you are." The police officer advised me.
"I do not need any paper. I know who I am," I said.
"Maybe so. Other people are also interested in knowing who you are."

--B. Traven, The Death Ship

So what is actually in a name ? Is it a social label that lets us recognize who we are ? or does it actually define who we are ? So by merely changing our name, can we completely renounce ourselves from the past and start a new life ?

This is one of the central theme, vantage point of the novel, Jasmine, by Bharati Mukherjee where a young girl, born in a poor village in India engages in a long journey to find herself, to take control of her life, to disprove predestination, to “realign stars” that haunted her life since she was seven. Burdened by the weight of her past, with a victim mentality, throughout the novel, she finds herself on a constant run away from what “[she] doesn’t want to become”. Struggling to come into terms with her past and present and mostly frustrated, “instead of taking her own life, she kills a part of her old identity in order to be born again” ( Burton p.88 )

Gary T. Marx, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims that the legal name is only one of several components which defines an individual’s ‘identity’ also known as the ‘knowledge of identifiability’. According to him they are

1. Name ( Legal / Alias / Nicknames )
2. Locatability
3. Pattern Knowledge
4. Social categorization
5. Symbols of eligibility / non-eligibility
6. Pseudonyms

Born as Jyoti, throughout the novel, she goes through a series of new names, new identities, such as Jasmine, Jane, Jase, Jazzy. And in fact at one instance she calls herself ‘Kali’, the Indian goddess of destruction and messenger of death when she killed Half-Face for the revenge of raping her. Each of these names were given to her by others, (mostly) by her husbands or lovers. She did not reject them or choose one of them over the other but embraced each of them as a ‘new identity’, putting her past aside, moving on, just as a passive element and just as submissive as she was culturally trained to be from birth. This name changes indeed marked a new beginning for her. But was it the only factor in her trasformation ?

Professor Marx defines locatability being the identification of a person with a certain geographical area or a specific address. Born and brought up in a small village called Hasnapur in India , Jyoti was given a born cultural identity as a villager in Hasnapur. Her strict but rich traditions there defined her attitudes and behavior. But she was compelled to embark on an illegal journey to a land which was completely strange to her, a land where there was no value which could be paralleled to what she was brought up with. Jyoti travels to Florida to fulfill her duties as a obedient Indian wife. As I see it, it was not an active decision but a passive one because she travelled to Florida not for her sake but to fulfill the duty of ‘sati’ as an obedient Indian widow. But she survives and manages to adapt to this new surrounding, even though her very first experience was horrifying. And even within the United States, her moving from one state to the other clearly marked a transformation and the changes in character at these milestones were much evident to the reader. Also at the end of the novel, Mukherjee symbolizes her change even further by her new journey towards California, a very popular American ideology of westward movement for a ‘new life’ and to be ‘born again.’

Identification may also be made by reference to distinctive appearance or behavior patterns which Marx categorizes as ‘Pattern Knowledge’. Throughout the novel, it is evident to the reader, how Jyoti’s attitudes and behavior change. Arriving in Florida, we are introduced to a very timid submissive Jyoti but towards the end, the reader gets the sense of a more empowered attitude from Jane which signals a total transformation of her identity.

India is well know over the world for their radical caste system. Jyoti, even though not as low as the subalterns or the untouchables, was suppressed by the traditions and attitudes of this caste system. But coming to United States, where there was very less social categorization helped her transform herself even more.

Hence is it evident that “her life is structured as a succession of incarnations” (Burton 87) and that “She transformed herself from Sita – compliant, beautiful, obedient to Kali – source of destruction, messenger of death and provider of renewal and rebirth” ( Burton. P.88 ) But there is a question whether she actively chose to transform herself or she was passively embracing these changes which were enforced to her. The answer is somewhat evident. She was actually submissive to these changes throughout the novel and even at the end.